Will we look only to the planets in the sky for a new life, or shall we look underfoot and aloft our heads for life at hand?
INVERTING IS THE NEW BIRDING
🐝Bee an inverter observer!
Ten Compelling Reasons to Observe Nature
(Revision of 2024 post)
- Fair Sharing: By studying the particular social world of insects and their technology, we can learn how to live in greater biological harmony with the planet.
2. New Discoveries: Species new to Vermont were posted to iNaturalist last year. You might be the first to record a new species for Vermont this year.
3. Nearby: Life that is a footstep away is as important as that which we search for in the skies, certainly more likely to be found.
4. Health: Scientific studies have repeatedly shown that being outdoors in nature improves our health.
5. Fun Competition: Compete with your friends and help your town compete with others in Vermont. It is fun - individually or as a family activity- educational, and can be a competitive sport.
6. Understanding habitat needs: Our shared 'kin' has few places to go. We have left little space for life other than human life. The better we know what we have, the better we can identify and provide the habitat they need.
7. Invasive Species Management: Detecting and mapping invasive species helps to monitor and manage these species.
8. Conservation: Understanding what species exist in our cities and towns is critical for biologists and the general public. Biological diversity is being lost as species go extinct, and it is only by understanding species that we can shape the social, political, and financial forces that affect conservation efforts.
9. Wildlife: Species observations can raise awareness about issues that affect our natural environment/wildlife and the many species of LIFE in our backyards. Biodiversity is required for a healthy ecosystem.
10. The top reason to observe insects and other wildlife species is that they often amaze us when we look closely enough and for long enough to learn what they look like, how they behave, and how they live day to day.
*BONUS POINTS: Not much more than half the organisms on earth have yet been described. There are roughly sixty-five hundred species of mammals, nine thousand species of amphibians, and eleven thousand species of birds. There are two to ten million INSECT species, many unknown to science. What will you discover?
Dreaming of Spring & Summer Inverting
Birders are lucky; they have the Christmas Bird Count, the nation's longest-running community science bird project. From December 14 through January 5 each year, tens of thousands of volunteers throughout America brave snow, wind, or rain and take part in the effort.
Meanwhile, we Inverters (insect-watchers), community scientists, and other nature observers must mostly wait it out. We dream of when we will again be inverting from around Memorial Day through fall. Technically speaking, our invertebrate census can occur all year. However, most of the action is during spring through fall.
Like birders, we will brave any weather to find our six-legged friends. Moreover, we will lift rocks, move fallen leaves aside, peer into pencil-lead-sized holes in trees and fallen logs, search the cracks of stone walls, and go knee-deep into the water, mud, and muck. All that before spring blooms - then, hands-down, flowers draw in like magnets, our pollinating, beneficial, and incredibly diverse insect species for easy inspection.
Similar to birding, if not more so, you can fill your invertebrate quota and more by observing in your backyard. Your backyard can be an ecosystem - a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.
Being an inverter has its advantages. While birders are limited to about 260 bird species in VT, around 800 in the U.S., and about 11,000 worldwide, Invertebrates rule the numbers game. The VT F&W website states, “While precisely how many kinds of invertebrates are in Vermont is unknown, it has been estimated at approximately 21,400 species.”
Competitive? Check out the VT city and town Nature Challenge leaderboard to see where your Vermont city or town ranks for several species, observations, and observers. As of early spring, on iNaturalist, my hometown of Jericho was in 11th place amongst VT cities and towns for (all life species) recorded with a count of 2,006; Montpelier had 3,677 and Calais had 3,166 species.
INVERTING BEGINS
It's mid-April, and temperatures are reaching record highs, yet the ground temperature is below fifty degrees. In 2023, my FOY (first-of-year) bumblebee, a tri-colored came in early April, and in 2024, mid-April. What can they find for food this early? Perhaps some tree buds or just opening pussy willows? Last year, the early queens attended our crocus; this year, so far, they seem to only fly to them, then quickly fly away.
Carpenter bees genus Ceratina, 3/8 inch in length, fly into the crocus past the stamen and style down toward the ovary for the good stuff. Some come out dusted in orange pollen. I observed one Zadontomerus couple (en copula) from 2:47 to 2:53, at which point they were still connected. Interestingly, the male would frequently move its head up and down. Perhaps he did not want me interloping. I am happy to leave them be and continue to enjoy their seemingly long honeymoon. With luck, I will be able to visit with their offspring later in the year.
In the wet section of our yard, again on a crocus, only on the outside lands a larger bee, which seems to eye me suspiciously, giving me only enough time for a quick photo before flying off. This is a Carlin's Mining Bee, a new species for me (Bee species #80). Welcome to our neighborhood! The sky reflected so beautifully in your eye. I do hope you come back to visit and feed.
A brown curled leaf twitches without a breeze. A closer look reveals a Virginia Ctenucha Moth caterpillar which, if birds or other predators do not feed upon it, will metamorphose into a most colorful orange, brown, and greenish moth. This caterpillar looked like it was sniffing the air as it moved its head around, crawled a little, and then looked about again.
A quiet spell, with not much seen, motivates me to sit in a lawn chair and read a novel, occasionally peeking out from the pages for any movement nearby. An ant carrying what looks to be a caterpillar macro-scale to itself moves through the grass at, for its size, an astounding pace. I get on hands and knees to watch it maneuver its large load up and down, and sometimes around enormous obstacles; for the ant, vegetation even a few inches high is like us being in the Amazon forest. This ant seemed to have boundless energy, never stopping to rest, only pausing to get its prey unstuck from an entanglement.
Another Subgenus Zadontomerus bee lands on a goldenrod broken stem, perhaps seeking a place to excavate a nest. It is grand to watch them kick out tiny pieces of sawdust from these stems, which I happily leave standing throughout the spring and early summer, thus allowing nature to provide housing for these minute bees and entertainment for me.
No sooner than I get through two more pages of the novel, I notice a few grass blades moving ever so slightly, then stop, and then a leaf moves. A ground beetle, scurrying short distances from one hiding spot to another, not wanting to be out in the open. It takes patience and quite a few tries before I get a photo of it in between dashes.
While not much is green out yet, an Augochlorine Sweat Bee highlights the predominant color of a Vermont Summer. This one lands on the orange stigma of a crocus flower with its sparkling green glittering in the sunlight.
The list in the links below attests to how many species of insects can be observed in a small backyard if there are enough food and housing plants for them. For me, much of the interest and awe is not just the diversity of living species but also the diverse behaviors even within a single species. I have observed predation, like wasps or, more often, dragonflies, flying in like F-35s snatching up an insect right in front of me. I have watched many copulations, some as brief as birds, others lasting over fifteen minutes. Metamorphosis is fascinating to watch in its various stages and to see the different forms of life one species evolves into. There are many stories left to tell, but time is short. It's time to get back to spring INVERTING!
Remember, leave room for wild things and functional ecosystems. Wildlife needs habitats for housing and food just like we do. We are all part of and all need some wild habitat.
Vermont Bee Observations in 1.3 Acre yard. Guess how many.
Hundreds of Insects observed in Jericho VT Yard.
